11.20.09
The essence of good customer service
Since a big part of my career has involved being in, or managing, operational support teams I have often had cause to think about what customer service actually is. I’ve considered the impact of technical skill, effective process (ITIL and all that stuff), detailed work instructions, employee onboarding and training, trouble ticket or helpdesk systems, knowledgebases, self-service and so on.
But this week I confirmed a suspicion I’ve had for a while. It’s…..
Read the rest of this entry »
10.25.09
Do big screens really increase developer productivity?
I was fortunate recently to visit BT’s new Agile development centre at Martlesham, and was very impressed with the design. Each team has ready access to round-table conference/scrum areas, with presentation screens and video-conference facilities, almost every wall is a whiteboard and, of couse, motivational wall-art abounds. I was slightly surprised to see that each desktop was only equipped with a single 19″ monitor.
At an Agile conference at which I presented earlier this year, one of the other presenters told of some research his organisation had done on developer productivity, and how the number and size of screen affects it. Read the rest of this entry »
02.10.09
Agile development in a multi-country business
As I’m presenting at a conference on Agile software development (wiki entry) I’ve been reviewing a number of my recent projects using this development methodology to help you understand the challenges that you may face in using Agile in your businesses.
Do your customers understand Agile?
One of the benefits of Agile – as the name suggests – is that the project can respond more rapidly to business change. Unlike traditional sequential or waterfall developments that are run in a “requirements – design – build – deliver”, Agile embraces change in each round of development in a highly adaptive way. The bad news is that your internal customers may take it as an opportunity to design process “on the fly”, or even to design and implement significant organisational change on the back of an Agile software project! Read the rest of this entry »
12.29.08
Some words of advice for IT Recruitment Consultants
Thanks to all the recruitment consultants who email and call me on a regular basis to place candidates. However, when they advertise roles on the many, many job boards something seems to go awry. Read the rest of this entry »
12.11.08
Is your website designer any good?
I’ve recently been asked to look at a couple of small business’ new web sites. Typically the owner thinks it’s great but just wants someone like me with a larger-scale IT background to “check it out and tell me what you think”.
In one case the site was created by an student doing an IT degree, in others by small, local independent web designers or small companies.
In every case the site was inadequate for the purpose intended. Read the rest of this entry »
12.10.08
Comments?
Just a quick note to my readers;
I’d really appreciate any comments, positive or negative. It’s hard to know whether I’m providing useful information or insight, or just writing rambling drivel!
11.04.08
How to interview senior candidates – some tips
As managers, we’ve all been interviewed for new positions many times. I’ll bet you’ve all been asked the classics:
- Where do you see yourself in five years’ time?
- What are your strengths and weaknesses?
- Have you ever had to fire someone or make them redundant?
- Why do you want this job?
- What qualities do you think will be required for this job?
- What can you contribute?
- Why do you want to work for this company?
- What do you know about this company?
and so on. And I’ll also bet you have an answer ready to go for each of them! Most “interview tips” sites will give interviewees that list, some will even have you ask questions that may be illegal in some countries, such as questions about age. It shows how common those questions are.
What those sites don’t tell hiring managers is WHY you ask questions such as those, or how to interpret the answers. I’m going to have a go at answering that, and to try to give you an idea as to how you can interview more effectively (and maybe even take less time and enjoy it a bit more!). Read the rest of this entry »
10.25.08
Can you cut IT costs without affecting service?
OK, let’s get to the point straight away…. I believe it IS possible to cut IT costs and leave service unaffected, or even possibly improved. I’ve been considering options for desktop hardware, server environments and reducing software customisation costs. Read the rest of this entry »
Cloud computing?
I was fascinated to come across g.ho.st, a fairly well-formed public test of a cloud computing system (if that’s the right word for it!). It attempts to provide a hosted OS with a web-based application suite from Zoho, upload/download and tools to sync to a “real” computer – or FTP as the rest of us would call it. Of course, one can use GoogleDocs or other web based services to virtualise the app and file storage side of it.
So, what does this mean for the corporate IT world?
I’ve been wondering about the general utility of in-house hosted desktop systems such as Citrix’s and Microsoft’s offerings, but always come back to a few key blocking issues:
- If I lose one server, I lose multiple users’ envionments. In a call centre or NOC business unit, that’s a no-no. There are probably resilience options I’m not aware of, but just the headline can be enough to put off a business unit department head
- Mobile users – my company operates in many areas where I can’t guarantee even GSM service, let alone GPRS or faster. So I’m back to laptops (or maybe netbooks….)
- Legacy – I already have hundreds of pretty good laptops and desktops out there, so when exactly do I try to get centralised computing started? Maybe I need a seed project of some kind to get the ball rolling.
- The economy – it looks like I may get a bunch of recent desktop/laptop kit back into stock as the company “rightsizes” (I hate that word). Not a great indicator of a time for capital expenditure to get a hosted desktop model running
Which brings me back to cloud computing. Somehow I can’t see how it’s different from the established offerings, except for the SAAS (software as a service) aspect and it’s not Windows. And it might be cheaper to get started. Oh, and the file storage is out of my control, out of my country with all the data protection issues THAT carries, and I’m reliant upon somebody who I may not even have a formal contractual relationship with to support it and back up my corporate data!
If g.ho.st were to sell their environment for me to run on a hosted server or virtual server in an environment I could rely on, I’d be very interested.
Until then, I’ll use it for my personal use, but I’m running g.ho.st almost entirely via my usual laptop! I’m not sure that was really the idea….
Welcome
Hello to my readers!
Some quick background to give you a context for my ramblings contained herein.. I’m an IT Director in the UK Telecomms industry, managing a fair sized team covering all aspects of IT and information systems from OSS and BSS systems to desktop and server architecture and implementation. With some of the great members of my department I’ve been discussing and musing on issues relating to the way IS can be a driver and facilitator of business change, so I decided to put some of these thoughts down here for others to read and comment upon.
Enjoy!
The IS Guy
